Producing biofuels, such as biodiesel, bioethanol, and/or biogasoline, from renewable energy sources provides numerous benefits. The increasing costs, increasing difficulty of extraction, and depletion of known fossil fuel reserves help to spur the development of such alternative fuel supplies. Efforts have been made to develop renewable energy fuels such as ethanol from corn grain or biodiesel from canola, palm, rapeseed and other sources. The amount of biofuel that can be derived from food plant materials is often limited and the underlying increase in food commodity prices often negatively impacts food availability in developing countries, food prices in the developed world, on otherwise limited food-producing land.
Efforts are underway to generate biofuels and biochemicals from non-food materials, such as cellulosic ethanol from wood pulp, corn stover or sugar cane bagasse. Algae and other photosynthetic microorganisms can provide feedstock for biofuel and biochemical synthesis. Biofuel, biochemical, and biomass production from algae could permit productivities per unit of land area orders of magnitude higher than those of corn, rapeseed, palm, canola, sugar cane, and other traditional crops. In addition to biofuels, biochemicals and biomass can provide a variety of sustainable feedstock for plastics, chemical additives, essential human food supplements, and animal feedstock.